boolean modifier for 1 cylinder inside another cylinder

Question

I cannot get the boolean difference modifier to work for these 2 cylinders as shown. What am I doing wrong? The normals on both cylinders are point outwards

Answer 1

What you are doing works just fine. You can't see that it works because the Boolean modifier is non-destructive. Cylinder.001 still exists.

You can do one of several things, including but not limited to:

1. Hide Cylinder.001 by clicking the eye icon in the outliner, or selecting it and typing H in the 3d Viewport resulting in the eye looking closed;

2. Placing it in a different collection and hiding that collection;
3. Applying the modifier and deleting Cylinder.001; or
4. Changing its Viewport Display property to Bounds or Wire so that you can see that it still exists, but also see the Boolean effect.

Your choice depends on your workflow. A very popular workflow is to

• Create a separate collection called something like Cutters and move it to that collection
• Change its Viewport Display to wire or bounds.

This gives you the flexibility of hiding all of the cutters you are using, or only a few of them, while still allowing you to see both the result of the Boolean and why that result occurred. Here's an example:

The 3D Viewport: